Strobes Proper set up

nxk2000

I'm getting ready to purchase a pair White Lightning x1600 units. My first shoot with them is one that I won't be able to practice so I'm looking for some tips. It will be at a ice rink taking team and individual photos. I should be shooting from the bench. I thought I would place the heads facing upward to bounce off the ceiling. The ceiling is a aluminum covered insulation. When doing this would I want to us a different reflector then the standard or remove it all together?
<o:p> </o:p>Along with the set up question if you have any different recommendation on the strobes it would be greatly appreciated.
<o:p> </o:p>Thank you.

ziggy53

If you bounce the studio strobes off the ceiling also add some fill lights or you'll get dark eye sockets.

For group images I would rather suggest a horizontal "wall of light", which I interpret as 2 large umbrellas, used in reflector configuration, and placed relatively high and flanking the lens. I generally set one of the flashes about one stop less to give some directionality. You can also potentially set the strobes to fire high and behind your position, to reflect off the corners of the roof and walls, if the roof and walls are neutral in color. In either case I suggest leaving the reflectors on or use barn doors to help direct the light.

For the individual shots, will they be during a practice or game?

nxk2000

ziggy53 wrote:

If you bounce the studio strobes off the ceiling also add some fill lights or you'll get dark eye sockets.

For group images I would rather suggest a horizontal "wall of light", which I interpret as 2 large umbrellas, used in reflector configuration, and placed relatively high and flanking the lens. I generally set one of the flashes about one stop less to give some directionality. You can also potentially set the strobes to fire high and behind your position, to reflect off the corners of the roof and walls, if the roof and walls are neutral in color. In either case I suggest leaving the reflectors on or use barn doors to help direct the light.

For the individual shots, will they be during a practice or game?

These are all still shots.

Thank you for the info.

ziggy53

nxk2000 wrote:

These are all still shots.

Thank you for the info.

For the individual images I would use a more conventional lighting configuration with at least a key and fill light setup.

Art Scott

How high is this ceiling your going to try and bounce off of???.......the local Ice Hockey team here uses a rink with a 50+ foot ceiling and the new arena where they will actually play is even higher..........

nxk2000

Art Scott wrote:

How high is this ceiling your going to try and bounce off of???.......the local Ice Hockey team here uses a rink with a 50+ foot ceiling and the new arena where they will actually play is even higher..........

I would guess it's around 40-50ft.

rwells

Lots of unknown variables here, but generally, I would go with Ziggy's suggestions.

How much ambient light? And how much do you want in the image background? What is the ambient lighting kelvin/color temp? Unless your going to overpower ambient with your strobes, you need to consider gels on your strobes to keep the strobe light fall-off from being very noticeable, color wise.

If you don't care to include the background as useful context, then the umbrellas will be fine. If you also want to include the background, you could bounce one strobe off the ceiling and the other off the rink wall/glass, at an angle to provide directional lighting. A few test shots should be all that's needed to setup your light power/ratios.

BTW, 40-50' is very do-able if they are light colored, especially with your listed strobes.

nxk2000

rwells wrote:

Lots of unknown variables here, but generally, I would go with Ziggy's suggestions.

How much ambient light? And how much do you want in the image background? What is the ambient lighting kelvin/color temp? Unless your going to overpower ambient with your strobes, you need to consider gels on your strobes to keep the strobe light fall-off from being very noticeable, color wise.

If you don't care to include the background as useful context, then the umbrellas will be fine. If you also want to include the background, you could bounce one strobe off the ceiling and the other off the rink wall/glass, at an angle to provide directional lighting. A few test shots should be all that's needed to setup your light power/ratios.

BTW, 40-50' is very do-able if they are light colored, especially with your listed strobes.

There are 2 rinks that I might be shooting at. 1 they just replaced all the lights so it's brighter then normal. The other is very dim. I think the temp is around 3500. I figured some of the background would be visible. I know sometimes it's best keep it simple so the focus is on the subject. As far as umbrellas I only have 2. 1 64" 16 Rib Parabolic umbrella and 1 32" Silver/White umbrella.

Going with what you have suggested have 1 bounce off the ceiling then could I shoot the other through the 64" umbrella to get directional lighting?

Since I can't practice at the ice rink I used a 4000 sq ft shed. Firing them both at a 45deg up the only thing I disliked was the harsh shadows coming off my subject.

Thanks again.

bloomphotog

I would use the 64" PB as a reflector(shoot into it, bouncing the light). Place it directly in front of the group, and at a slight angle for the individual shots. Get it as high as you can, and then just stand directly in front of the umbrella and take the shot. When done right, this technique will turn a large PB into a huge beauty dish.

An ice rink is going to have plenty of natural fill light, so the ceiling bounce idea will be unnecessary, IMO. I would place the other strobe behind the group to act as a rim light. This will create a nice separation from the background and add some excitement to the shot. Maybe even gel it blue or something. Get the light positions set and then jut play around with the camera and strobe setting to get a nice ratio of ambient to strobe light. And then post up with the results!

rwells

nxk2000 wrote:

There are 2 rinks that I might be shooting at. 1 they just replaced all the lights so it's brighter then normal. The other is very dim. I think the temp is around 3500. I figured some of the background would be visible. I know sometimes it's best keep it simple so the focus is on the subject. As far as umbrellas I only have 2. 1 64" 16 Rib Parabolic umbrella and 1 32" Silver/White umbrella.

Going with what you have suggested have 1 bounce off the ceiling then could I shoot the other through the 64" umbrella to get directional lighting?

Since I can't practice at the ice rink I used a 4000 sq ft shed. Firing them both at a 45deg up the only thing I disliked was the harsh shadows coming off my subject.

Thanks again.

You can do that, and it's pretty much what Ziggy & I both stated. You stated that you would be shooting from the bench. My suggestion was to bounce a strobe from the ceiling, then to shoot another strobe into the rink wall (toward you, but off to the side) angled in a way to have this light bounce directionally back to the group. But an umbrella will serve the same general purpose, although I'm pretty sure the wall is much larger than your umbrella, therefore giving you softer more even light. But either way should work fine.

As to not bouncing off the ceiling: If a strobe isn't bounced to the ceiling, you are going to be dealing with mixed lighting. Now you have all the problems with dealing with that issue. The ceiling bounced strobe will over-power the ambient and make this a non-issue.

YMMV and I'm not vested in this either way...

nxk2000

I had my first shoot with the WL x1600's. The plan was to bounce one off the ceiling and one off the wall. Of course things didn't work as planned. I was concerned about having to many parents in the background so I changed sides of the rink with my wall. Now behind me are 20 rows of seats. I only used one light off the ceiling. I was happy with the results. Here are a couple of the shots. Details Here.

Art Scott

You did well and these are good photos.....but how ill they look enlarged up to 20x30 or 30 x 40......well wij tje D3 they might be fine...........or at least acceptable.

The companies I used to contract thru all used 100iso film (yes film days:D) so bouncing off ceilings and walls wasn't gonna work....especially if out doors doing soccer or footbal or baseball or any other outdoor sport.....basket ball....nasty gym lighting but still all done in the gym.....we all used reflective umbrellas to gain a stop or 2 but it was still softer than straight on flash.........instead of 2 rows of kids as in your group photo get them into 3 rows....standing sitting on a bench and kneeling of sitting on floor but all on that lower level have to be alike......
This tightens things up and produces a nicer group shot....you want to look like every reaally does like stinky instead of pusing him to ther other end of the line.......also with 3 or 4 lines of players for large teams...it fills the frame better.....there is aton of wasted space on top and on bottom........another little trick is to put team name on floor or wall to take up that dead space.....you can do this in photoshop ............
We were shooting upto 50 teams a day.....each photographer and at times there wer 15 of us heading out of town to KC or other towns................
I was amazed at some photos I took of football teams when I saw the photoshoping of team names or the players name in the grass.......EMBOSSED IN THE GRASS......it was very cool...............

ziggy53

The lighting looks fairly natural and not too obvious.

IMO you made the right decision switching sides to reduce background distraction. You might consider a panoramic crop to reduce even more of the background in the team photo. Then you could use a digital mat to create a standard image size/proportion. Part of the image could then be used for team information as well.

nxk2000

That is the only team I have with that many kids. It's a combination of two age groups. On my memory mate I did change it to more of a panoramic. Maybe next year I'll work on adding something into the empty space. This year has turned into a rush job.

I do believe the D3 does an acceptable job. I went crazy last month while I waited for it to get a new shutter assembly. I used my D80 and tried a D700 and D300s and none of them could fill the void while it was being repaired.

I have two more teams this week where I'll get to use a bounce on the ceiling and wall. We will see how those turn out.

Thanks

nxk2000

Here are the shots using one off the ceiling and one off the wall behind me. The only downside to bouncing off the wall was the reflection on the back glass. Otherwise i would say the picks turned out good.

Thanks for the help everyone.

Details.

rwells

Those look good to me ~ glad that setup worked-out for you

bloomphotog

These look great. I love the second set. Using the wall as a reflector was a great move. Now...time to play with gels and DOP!